SLADE: "We've Got The Spirit"

Orient manager Russell Slade once more praised the spirit of his side as they secured another valuable three points on their travels at Stevenage.

It was a second clean sheet in a row for The O’s and Slade was delighted with the way his team defended.

He said: “In the main I thought we defended very well, obviously they are a big side so they are problem from a corner of a free kick but we managed to keep them out on that score and other than that really my goalkeeper wasn’t troubled that much.

“On the other side of the game going forwards, I thought we were excellent and we created a lot of chances and the only disappointment is that we didn’t score more goals.”

Slade also handed an immediate debut to Shaun Batt who joined the club on deadline day on loan from Millwall and the manager was pleased with his impact.

“Shaun’s got that pace and he’s an awkward customer, he’s not played an awful lot of games but he was a constant threat throughout but my plan always was to bring him off to be honest after 65 minutes because he’s not had so many games and because he may well play some part in Tuesday’s game.

“Charlie [MacDonald] worked tirelessly too and he’s so unlucky. He’s put the ball in the back of the net again, he’s doing everything but score and his work ethic is phenomenal.”

Having played midweek and with the big game on Tuesday against Southend United in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy to come, Slade made full use of his squad, something which he believes is an indication of the progress of the club.

“I think that shows how far we’ve come. When I took over I don’t think we would have had those sorts of subs on the bench but we’ve gradually grown and between now and the summer we need to see if we can make us just that little bit better again and I think we are turning into a very, very solid League One side at the moment. If we can just push on a little bit more and just add a little bit to what we’ve got then we’re only going to go forwards.

“We’ve got the personnel but above everything else we’ve got the commitment, we’ve got the spirit and we’ll make sacrifices. It doesn't matter to us what ability the opposition have got, it’s how you use it and I think we used it to our strengths today.”